There was a cacophony of sounds.
In the huge basement, there is a huge conference table. Densely packed war maps were pinned to the walls, and the maps were filled with various marks.
There are all kinds of information and files everywhere, and there is almost no place to stay.
The whole conference room was busy and full of anxiety.
The smoke from burning tobacco filled the air, carrying the pungent smell of saliva and sweat. The hot and dry warm air blows out from the constant temperature matrix and mixes together, almost suffocating.
"Our defenses collapsed!"
Next to the conference table, the old man with all his hair in the wheelchair was holding a report with trembling hands: "Due to the operational errors of the commander of the Western Fleet, the defense line has completely fallen! Avalon has been lost!"
At the end of the sentence, he almost lost his voice, hammered his chest in grief, spit out a mouthful of blood, and fell in the wheelchair.
"General Nolin! General Nolin!"
The people around him were confused and shouted: "Medicine! Medic!"
Two lame old men ran up to him and pushed him away.
In the chaos, the old man at the end angrily swept over the files on the table and shouted: "Coward! Coward! Where is the commander of the Western Fleet! Get him burned on the stake! Burn him to death!"
"Burn him!" Others waved their hands in agreement.
"No! You can't do this!"
The commander loudly defended: "I only have my own strategic considerations! Angelou's current territorial depth and food reserves are simply unable to contend with natural disasters head-on... You can't do this! I want to see the Grand Inquisitor! I want to see the Grand Inquisitor!"
"Coward, die!"
The old man next to him who was still wearing a nourishing mask got up angrily, pulled out the decorative sword on the wall, and stabbed the commander in the stomach. No blood flowed out, and the cables of the mechanical viscera were exposed under the tear in the clothes. The sword blade passed through the gap between the viscera without any pain or itching.
But the commander held his belly in an exaggerated manner, screamed, and fell to the ground.
"Someone, drag him down!"
An old man with a metal pipe stuck around his neck, wearing a supreme commander's hat, waved and said: "At this moment, the only thing left to look at is the Southern Legion. Bring me the map of Asgard!"
"Sir, there is no map of Asgard. You can get a copy of the Caucasus map to make do with it."
"Damn it, can these two be the same?"
The supreme commander roared: "You are derelict of duty! Dereliction of duty! Gendarmerie! Gendarmerie! That white-haired kid, what about you? Come here! Yes, you are the gendarme. Drag this guy down! Burn him to death!"
Ye Qingxuan was stunned, and stepped forward at the urging of the old man. He didn't know what to do. The old man who was regarded as derelict in his duties winked at him and made gestures for a long time. Ye Qingxuan pushed him aside in embarrassment. The old men eating melon seeds on both sides covered them with a red cloth and burned them at the stake.
Under the red cloth, the old man even cooperated and let out a scream of being burned to death.
What the hell is this
At this moment, Ye Qingxuan looked confused, but the "command headquarters" was still in full swing with the command. Someone kept bringing out urgent messages from the next room. Orders were constantly issued from the headquarters to mobilize troops from various places for defense and counterattack.
It's just that the order letters were thrown into the trash can in the corner, staying with the cigarette ashes and leftover fish bones, and no one cared about them anymore.
Soon, with the orders from the headquarters, the rotten situation improved slightly, but then, ten minutes later, it began to take a turn for the worse. Following Angelo, the western desert and the northern ice sheet were lost one after another, and the whole of Asgard fought to the death and fell. , Burgundy was divided, and the Caucasus was ignited into a fiery hell with the strategic movements of the saints, and no living person remained.
In the end, only the Holy City was left alone against the dark world.
In the suffocating silence, the supreme commander took off his hat and said hoarsely: "Comrades, we have reached the most critical moment! We must hold on to the Holy City! We must not lose! The 107th Eastern Expedition will never This will end!!!”
He shouted the last sentence hoarse, and all the other old men followed him in their fanatical shouting. But in the midst of the bustle, there was a discordant sound.
"etc!"
The old man who had just been "stabbed to death" by friendly forces got up, waving a big book thicker than a dictionary in his hand: "The host made a miscalculation! There are clearly six enchantment instruments on my flagship, and they are fully powered. Yes, how could the demon charge and my whole army be wiped out?"
The old man in charge of the calculation rolled his eyes: "On a 100-point dice, you rolled 9 for 'weather', a big failure! Stormy weather, monsters have a bonus. Besides, your fleet is not supplied enough, and half of the musicians were lost in the battle. , Xielvyi destroyed itself!"
"I obviously have a terrain advantage!"
"The terrain advantage has been offset!"
"Fart! That's not what's written in the rule book! You bastard, you miscalculated! And I also bought two airships! You've eaten them! Give me my fleet back!"
When he revealed what he had revealed, the old man lost his composure: "I wrote the rules for the naval battle chapter! I changed them! You have any objections!"
"I will stab you to death with one sword, you heretic!"
"Come! Come! If not, you are my son!"
The two of them became more and more excited as they talked. They were both in their old age with life-support tubes and mechanical internal organs inserted into their bodies, but when they moved their hands, they were unambiguous and started fighting instantly. The people nearby wanted to pull them away, but the "dead" who were judged to have been destroyed fanned the flames and stepped on the wrong places to hurt their feet. Within a few minutes, the group of people struggled together.
It seems that the 107th Eastern Expedition is about to end...
Ye Qingxuan squatted beside him and shouted a few times. When he found that no one paid attention to him, he could only sigh and prepare to wait until they finished the fight. But a melon seed shell was thrown on his head.
He looked back and saw an old man sticking out half of his head behind a drawn curtain in the corner of the room and waving to him.
"Hey, young man, it's you... come here."
Ye Qingxuan lowered his head helplessly, wondering what kind of heretic he was planning to drag out, but after getting behind the curtain, he couldn't help but take a breath of air.
Through a curtain, the atmosphere has become completely different.
As far as the eye can see, in addition to piles of unorganized files, there are metal and plastic cables, and machines stacked up to occupy an entire wall.
Ye Qingxuan had seen these things in the hospital.
Artificial oxygen synthesizer, heart rate monitor, hemodialysis pump…
Densely packed cables extended from the equipment on the ceiling, floor or wall, and connected to the old man sitting on the heavy iron chair, maintaining his life.
The half of the face that Ye Qingxuan saw just now may be the only flesh and blood he has left.
I couldn't help but feel that half of my cheekbones had been replaced by metal, and the rest of my body could barely survive on its own. The thin old man was almost entirely embedded in the iron chair, wrapped in dense machinery.
The blood is driven by an artificial heart, breathing is maintained by a steel lung, and artificial solution is injected into the spine. Even half of the skull is transparent. Through the transparent skull, one can see silver electrodes inserted into the withered brain...
He was sitting on the chair, unable to even turn his head except for a slight movement back and forth, facing the wall. A long and narrow window was cut into the wall, and flames burned on the dark ocean, which was monotonous and boring.
It was like torture.
"Scared?"
The old man motioned Ye Qingxuan to sit down and laughed, but when the laughter came from the metal vocal cords, it had a strange hoarseness and sharpness:
"Your Excellency has come a long way and cannot go out to greet you. Your courtesy is not good, but I hope you will be included."
"It doesn't matter. I'm still young. If I can see the person in charge, it doesn't matter if I run around a little longer."
Ye Qingxuan looked at his face, looking at the dense wrinkles and age spots on his remaining face, but he couldn't tell how old he was...
"I know what you want to say, Mr. Ye."
The old man sighed softly and tapped the armrest with his only nimble left index finger: "Mr. Ye, you want to see us, but we may not be what you imagined - there are no principals here, we are just a group of defeated soldiers who have been abandoned by the times. . The Ministry of Doctrine of the Faith has long since collapsed. We are hiding in this forgotten corner and licking our wounds. Even the leader has died in the Holy Wheel Court. You hope to find a palace here, but there is only a pile of ruins here, without anything. Value, isn’t it, Mr. Ye?”
Ye Qingxuan was silent for a moment, took off the sacred belt that symbolized his identity, threw it aside, and just looked into his eyes: "I need help from you."
"I know."
The old man looked at the holy belt beside Ye Qingxuan, his eyes became filled with emotion, and he moved his fingers and pointed: "Can I have a look at it?"
Ye Qingxuan put the holy belt into his hand, and he held it tightly, stroking the patterns on it with his fingers, and a nostalgic smile appeared on his remaining face:
"The Holy Belt of the Grand Inquisitor... It's so good. I see it again after a hundred years."
Ye Qingxuan sat quietly next to him, looking at the same scenery as him, without disturbing him, and allowed him to reminisce about the past.
After a long time, the old man withdrew his gaze.
"Thank you, Mr. Ye, you can call me 'Stone'."
The old man introduced himself: "I am the same as the group of old ghosts you just saw. For now, we can be regarded as... the last remnants of the Inquisition."
Ye Qingxuan was stunned.
The last remnant is not the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but the Inquisition...
The Inquisition was disbanded over ninety years ago!
How many years have these guys lived...
Moreover, when the members of the Doctrine of the Faith left the Holy City, they were almost cleansed and left home, leaving no room for them to take any property with them. According to what Ye Qingxuan saw, these old people's mechanical organs, artificial blood, and life-support facilities alone amounted to a staggering number every day.
What is the identity of the person who can force them to spend all their wealth, sell iron, build, maintain and support these facilities at all costs
"Mr. Ye, don't worry."
Shi Dong made a weird gasping sound, as if he was laughing: "If we have any merit, it's just living a long life. In the past, when the trial court was still there, some of us were ascetics, and some were ascetics. Some people are inquisitors, some are purification musicians, and some are knights of the Witch's Hammer... Now, we are all just a bunch of old losers who can't live without oxygen tubes for five minutes."
Ye Qingxuan smiled and didn't take it seriously.
Who is serious and who is stupid.